Abimbola Abatta
Stakeholders in the oil and gas industry have stressed the need for Nigerian women to leverage the numerous opportunities available in the sector.
This is even as they urged the government to put mechanisms in place to encourage more women in sciences as part of the efforts to establish gender equality and equity.
The Chairman Board of Directors, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Senator Margery Chuba-Okadigbo, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr Simbi Wabote, and other key players in the sector made the disclosure at the Nigerian Women in Oil and Gas 2022 conference.
Themed, “Leveraging Opportunities for Women in the Oil and Gas Industry,” the conference was held on Tuesday at the Convention Centre, Eko Hotel, Lagos.
The conference was facilitated by the Diversity Sectorial Working Group (SWG) of the Nigerian Content Consultative Forum, (NCCF).
While speaking during the conference, Senator Chuba-Okadigbo, called for the need to provide mentorship and role models for upcoming women in the sector, adding that it is imperative to encourage the women in the industry.
She also enjoined the NCDMB to consider a replication of the NCDMB Project 100 model for women the in oil and gas industry.
Nigerian NewsDirect reports that the Project 100 is an initiative of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources alongside the NCDMB to look holistically at 100 wholly indigenous oil and gas companies and nurture them to the next level.
In her words, “It is common knowledge that fewer Nigerian women work in the formal sector than men. This is particularly so in the oil and gas industry, which is traditionally dominated by men.
“The industry has become one of the most challenging for women professionals. As a significant contributor to the economy, it is imperative to encourage the involvement of women in the sector,” she said.
She went further to say, “I recognise that there are barriers to advancing the involvement of women in the business world generally. It is my hope that as a consequence of the activities of this forum, there would be a significant improvement in the opportunities available to women, especially in the oil and gas industry.
“With these opportunities created by the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and with the staunch support of the public and private sectors of the oil and gas industry, I believe they will gather more support for women.
“We must provide mentorship and role models for upcoming women in the sector. We appeal to the NCDMB to consider a replication of the NCDMB project 100 model for women in the oil and gas industry.”
In his remarks to ensure that women are no longer in the minority in the oil and gas sector, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, said women must realise that opportunities abound in the sector.
He commended the organisers of the conference for advocating for more participation of women in the industry, which according to him is vast.
“Through this platform, we should be able to let women know that there is a lot of opportunities for them to take advantage of. The oil and gas sector, fortunately, is very vast. Almost every aspect of life is in the oil and gas sector. You can invest and do a lot within the sector. Once women understand this, they will come in to be a part of this sector.
“Because this is part of the core of the Nigerian economy and women who are also at the core of the economy must come into this sector. This is what we are advocating,” he said.
Reacting to the significance of the PIA, he said, “A lot of agencies have been established under the PIA, and the authorities are all in place. The whole idea is to bring in a lot of women into these organisations.
“There are already women appointed into these organisations to be able to support other women who want to participate in the industry. And of course, we are talking about affirmative actions to have funds that will encourage women to take positions in the oil sector.”
On his part, the Executive Secretary of the NCDMB opined that changing the narrative of low participation of women in the industry requires deliberate efforts to encourage the girl child right from the primary school.
He said, “We kept asking ourselves, what do we do to change the narrative? What do we do to encourage ladies into the oil and gas sector? We must start from their primary school up to secondary school and tertiary institution. We must encourage them.
“When I went to school as an Engineer, there was only one lady in my class and I think that has not changed. The question is what do we do to change the narrative? Are we going to wait until when it is time for secondary school or are we going to encourage STEM education?
“We are going to develop strategies with which the STEM education focusing on the girl child has to be encouraged from primary to secondary school before they make up their mind as to what they want to become. Because if we don’t do a targeted and deliberate intervention, I don’t think we will achieve the objective.
“There are clear deliverables and benchmarks to measure that. I think the outcome of this workshop also sets a targets and deliverables. The question we will be asking ourselves is how many of those women have been successful in gaining jobs in the oil and gas industry? We have to work to keep that — how many of those women have been successful in accessing the funds that we have there? That is the data we have to keep. Also, in terms of STEM education what is the diversity working group doing? How many young girls have they been able to reach and impact knowledge or motivate to get into the sciences? I think we will set those targets also for them so that we will also monitor, like I said it’s a two way street. They have given us a target, trust me to give them a target too, and I will demand performance out of that target.”
Wabote disclosed that part of the mandate of the NCDMB is to build capacities, noting that the agency has set some processes in motion through partnerships with stakeholders to help the capacities.
According to him, “In all the partnerships that we create, we have entitlement to about two directors positions, and I use my colleagues in those boards to ensure that the purpose with which that partnership was set up is implemented appropriately. So each of my directors is a member of those boards, looking after NDCMB interest as well as the overall development of that business. It is a shared responsibility which we try to ensure to put in place in managing those businesses.
“In terms of strategies, they have been challenged to come up with strategies which will excite the girl child participation in science subjects. That is the task and challenge we have given them.
“Also the association of women engineers has hammered on the STEM education, and they have a concrete programme that they are implementing. It is a question of getting the diversity working group to key in with them to implement these programmes.
“There is a lot of thinking going behind what they want to do. It is for them to come up with the ideas and to work with them to implement those ideas. Be assured that these are people who have experience in the oil industry either as an operator or service provider. So they will bring those experiences to them in terms of how we implement those strategies,” he added.
Meanwhile, the event featured four panel sessions, where panelists dissected various themes including “Women in Industry Governance – Safeguarding Gender Participation and Growth Across Board,” and “Building Effective Gender Management Systems, Structures and Processes That Promote Development, Diversity and Inclusion.”
Others are “Harmonising STEM Initiatives for Greater Impact” and “Creating an Enabling Operating Environment for Women in Oil and Gas Business – Opportunities from the Petroleum Industry Act.”
The event was attended by dignitaries in the oil and gas industry, some of which are Chairperson, NCCF Diversity SWG, Alero Onosode; Chairman NCCF/Director PRS, NCDMB, Mr Daziba Patrick Obah; MD, AFTRAC Limited, Board Member PETAN, Mrs Patricia Simon-Hart; and Group Managing Director/CEO, Techno Oil Limited, Mrs Nkechi Obi, among others.